


it

by Thatanimewacko



Series: it was something cold and bad [1]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Eating Disorders, Gen, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Yoo Kihyun-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 13:03:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19928521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatanimewacko/pseuds/Thatanimewacko
Summary: What is it? It is a multitude of feelings, outside and internal pressure, and years of trauma.It is a feeling in his stomach and a voice in his head. It is what keeps him in line. It is when he looks in the mirror and hates everything he sees. It is every comment from every stylist and diet after diet from their production team. It is kihyuns need to be perfect, perfect, perfect. His overwhelming need for control and the notion that food is a terrible thing. It hurts so bad but it feels so clean and it seems like necessity at this point. Because everything he does revolves around it in some way so he can't escape it.





	it

**Author's Note:**

> this is rlly just the preamble of the series  
> each work can be read as a one shot, but it works better when you read in the order that they are posted  
> major trigger warning for eating disorders. stay safe. this was written on a total whim and has now turned into a huge thing. posted on mobile with no proof reading or anything whoops sorry

What is it?  
It is a multitude of feelings, outside and internal pressure, and years of trauma.  
It is a feeling in his stomach and a voice in his head. It is what keeps him in line. It is when he looks in the mirror and hates everything he sees. It is every comment from every stylist and diet after diet from their production team. It is Kihyun's need to be perfect, perfect, perfect. His overwhelming need for control. How he's convinced himself he doesn't deserve, doesn't need food, that it is out to ruin him. It hurts so bad, but it feels so clean. It seems like necessity at this point. Because everything he does revolves around it in some way so he can't escape it.  
Somewhere, deep deep down, he knows what it is. But names have power and he doesn't think it's a problem, so it remains an it. A collection of bad feelings and bad actions he doesn't want to think about. Really, the whole group does this- not giving names to things because that gives the thing power.  
Minhyuk kissed Kihyun and Kihyun watched Minhyuk kiss Jooheon and there was no jealousy to be found. Not even when Jooheon went and kissed Changkyun a little while later. They discuss it, but they don't name it. All of them are intimate with one another and they all love one another, so that's all that matters. None of them are comfortable enough with themselves to call it what it is, let alone talk about it outside the group. It's polyamory, is what it is. The 7 of them are in a polyamorousrelationship, whether or not they call it that.  
Kihyuns' first boyfriend dumped him because he didn't like Kihyuns body anymore. So, when he suddenly has 6 gorgeous boys who think hes the best thing since sliced bread, well… its overwhelming. He's used to disappointing himself, but now there are staffs and his family and managers and directors, and stylists, and millions of fans to disappoint. He's always fighting to be better. He raises his own expectations impossibly high, so it feels as though he is always failing. The constant failure weighs tremendously heavy on his heart. And so, it grows.  
But maybe it's not even the outside pressure that makes it grow. Maybe it was watching his sister obsess over a 20 inch waist his whole life. Or maybe it was his goddamn parents. They never cared how healthy he was as long it never reflected badly on them. He could starve for two weeks as long as his grades were good. He could have an abusive boyfriend as long as the public never found out he was gay. But maybe it didn't grow because of that either. Maybe, it happened when he was 15, so thin it hurt to watch, and he told his counselor that he didn't really eat anymore and he was scared of the voice in his head. Because his mind tells him to starve, starve, starve, and exercise and throw up any morsel he dares to ingest. She had looked back at him, unnerved, and told him that she could not help him. (No, she didn't offer any resources that could have helped.) She calls his parents and they sit Kihyun down and tell him to “eat like a normal fucking person.” So, Kihyun does, even as it grows so immense that it runs through his veins.  
And in yet another perspective, Kihyun thinks he did this to himself. (He hates blaming other people. He only does that as a defense mechanism, when he hates himself so much he can't handle anymore guilt and that hatred has to go somewhere else.) Maybe, these people didn't actually do anything wrong. Maybe, he just does this to himself. Maybe Kihyun decided one day to starve himself, to punish himself for existing the way that he is. Maybe he made it all up. He doesn't know, he doesn't know, he doesn't know.  
There is too many terrible feelings and unhealthy behaviors to untangle. All he knows is that he does this, and he feels like shit.  
He can deny it all he wants. He can say he looks at thinspo for the aesthetic, because he likes the fashion. He exercises for his health. He threw up because of a stomach bug. Hes not hungry, he ate before he came, he doesn't like this food, he has an allergy. Deny, deny, deny and lie through his teeth until he believes it too.  
He has been good. He's been healthy. But on a Wednesday afternoon, he has a little too much time to think. He skips dinner, and pulls up the workout playlist, and out of the closet comes the scale. And it spirals from there

So he can lie and deny and be healthy for a little while, but that doesn't matter much, because it has never left him. No matter what he does, it exists. 

It is an eating disorder.


End file.
